Character Simulation

We had two classes discussing about character simulation, but actually I think this field seems more applicable in robotics. In my opinion, there are mainly two reasons for this. Firstly, the simulation calculation is still complicated, with simulated characters still moving unnaturally. Since usually the objective of character simulation is to make the character decide which motion to take given current environment or state. This somewhat results in the stiffness of the characters' movement. I found them look more like robots rather than a live character. I think in the case of animation, enriching the characters with vividness is more important than the rigid mechanics. The second reason is that character simulation usually needs multiple techniques, like IK, state machine, and often motion capture, which itself is quite mature and can be applied together with other techniques to generate satisfying animation results. Therefore, I didn't really understand why we need such efforts to research on the method, while the task can be well accomplished more easily with another method.

Nonetheless, I'm still quite interested in the research involving machine learning, so the character movement can be improved through time, as long as the sample provides accurate information during simulation. The results from the this paper were quite impressive.